LL Chapter 7

As always, Yiggersentia is my muse :)

Chapter Seven

Since their world was rather neatly reduced down to the glow of witchlight from her wand, Hermione watched him, his pupils shifting back and forth, slightly bulbous behind his lavender-veined lids, shadows raking down the harsh contours of his tired face. His head tilted ever-so-slightly from one side to the next as the mental suggestion of looking from left to right took over his motor reflexes. She knew the feeling, having consulted this progression meditation, herself, for two of her most difficult inner questions. Ending her relationship with Ronald had been one of them, her decision to stay with the Order after the War had been the other.

Her attention was promptly diverted back to Severus when he announced his choice to follow the person along his path.

Interesting. She almost broke her own rules and suggested to him that he might reconsider, but if this is what he felt he needed, then so be it. He might be in for answers to things he didn’t want to know or perhaps couldn’t handle yet, but who was she to stop him, really? Well, at least there was one way to suggestively regulate the progression. “Follow the path as you will to the person. Ask them the question you most desire answered and they will answer it, but once they answer the question they will have to leave, so ask carefully.”

It was hard not to laugh aloud as soon as his face dropped into a childish scowl, but she professionally kept quiet, allowing him to take the path he needed. She dropped the light of her wand down infinitesimally until it was barely an ember of blue-white light glowing at the tip and watched his expression fade from a scowl of petulance to one of concentration.

Was that a touch of consternation? Confusion? His rather unkempt, dark eyebrows swept together on his forehead and his nostrils flared. Fascinating. The light pulsed softly between them in time with her heartbeat as she kept vigil over his inner travel and from the expression on his face, he seemed to be having a hard time reaching the goal at the end of his path. She could nearly track the nervous energy coursing through his body, needing to be spent in pacing or something equally worry-wearing.

It would be an obvious guess who Severus would have gone to for advice in the past, but who would he go to now? Would Dumbledore show up and completely confuse him? Panic him? Her nerves shot needles of fear down to her fingertips and the wandlight flared a slight bit as she realized a possibility: Severus had no memory of killing Dumbledore, did he? Or if he did, it was subconscious and perhaps he might reveal that memory to himself…

Her eyes rounded in horror. What would that do to him?

She shifted her seat and watched him ever-closer, now.

He seemed to be fitful, as if still not finding what he searched for, but there was a pause that blanked the aggravation from his face, a shift of his jaw no more than a centimeter to the right and suddenly, complete and utter closure.

His lips parted, his mandible shuddered, then he clenched his jaw. Inhaled.

Exhaled.

She breathed in time with him, watching every nuance anxiously. Was he interacting with Dumbledore, or maybe she was overreacting? Maybe he would seek out someone else…

Oh, right, absolutely, someone else in the Wizarding world that represented the answers to everything. Even she had spoken to Dumbledore during one of her meditations. Not the Ronald one.

Severus rippled, literally, alongside her and she shifted uneasily in the hammock, careful not to disturb him. His breathing was starting to become labored.

She brought the wandlight closer to him and watched the pulse at his throat. It was beating beneath his skin like a caged animal, sporadic and hard.

Not good.

She shifted her legs off the edge a bit and leaned closer to him.

His head jerked to the left once, quick, hard, short. He swallowed.

His breathing became more intense and his impressive nostrils were literally palpitating with his struggle. His lip curled, tremored in distaste, showing a few of his teeth before clamping down in another molar-cracking clench which flexed muscles over his ears at his temples.

His pulse was racing now.

This…this couldn’t be good.

She wondered whether she should wake him and had just reached her wand-free hand over to touch him when he jerked.

She jerked her hand back but brought her wandlight to his face and thought perhaps he might wake up, but no. He lay completely still, eerily quiet.

Hermione looked down at his throat, then to his chest, sweeping her wandlight as she went and brightening it even more, searching in vain for vital signs.

Okay, now it was her turn to have palpitations!

Wasn’t he breathing?

“Severus.” She dropped her free hand to his chest and pressed, shook, tapped. “Severus.”

He rolled a bit closer to her as she jostled the hammock when she crawled into a better position to lean over him and, still gripping her wand, she pressed into his chest with both hands, “Severus! Wake up!”

Her mind raced. Had he had a heart attack? Maybe he’d merely passed out? What should she do? ‘Think! For God’s Sake, Hermione-girl, you’re the Brightest Witch of Your Age!‘

So why couldn’t she think of what to do? She grabbed the lapels of his borrowed coat and shook him gently, calling to him, “Severus.”

She could feel herself start to panic. Tears were forming and her hands were making her wand give off uneven, shaky light. Reaching up to brush her hair out of her face, she took a broken breath and thought through Muggle and Magical possibilities. According to St. Mungo’s and the Ministry, Severus was dead. Only by the grace of the Order were they able to even look for him. Muggle Emergency Personnel would have a picnic over his lack of identification since, again, he was supposed to be dead, even in his non-magical persona. A brief thought wriggled in the back of her mind about Hestry, but she pushed it away and looked up at the house.

Harry and Ronald would be able to help her move him inside if needed, but they weren’t much help, medically. Tonks and Remus had their own troubles to worry with since it was a Waxing Gibbous Moon at ninety percent.

It really was up to her and she couldn’t even remember her childhood lessons in cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

It was up to her…she looked down at him and touched his chest, his cheek, his forehead, whispered, “Oh, God. No, don’t let me lose you now, please. Please. Not when I’ve just found you again.”

His mouth went slack and opened, but not with expression…the exact opposite. The urge to scream in fear and frustration mounted deep in her gut but she swallowed it whole.

She could feel her face scrunch up in emotion and she slapped him on the chest with both hands, leaning over him more. Tears were running down her face, dropping onto him, but who fucking cared? She slapped, then clenched her hands, moaned his name just above a whisper, cringing at the thought of giving up on him and tried to think. Think!

She shook her head as the only thing she could think of was him sneering her down at her in second year, “I see no difference.”

He had been so cruel to her, to them, for their own good…

For their own good…

Well, then, at least it was an idea. She gathered her fear into anger and directed her shaking hands to his lapels again, yelling tightly to him, “Severus Snape, you’ve never gone the easy way out of anything in your life, you miserable sod, so don’t you dare go making things easy on yourself now by backing out just when I save your arse!”(1)

With a particularly violent jerk of his coat, his head came up off the hammock and cracked back down against the wooden cross-brace, eliciting an expulsion of breath with a slight moan of pain.

She blinked and let go, “Thank God.”

Her free hand came up to his face, tapping his cheek rapidly as she chanted “Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up…”

It was almost alien to see such black eyes open in the midst of such a pale face in the night, but it was the most beautiful thing she’d seen and without thinking, she leaned forward and hugged him. “Thank goodness you’re okay.” Her voice cracked and there was a lump in her throat that was holding back the waterworks, but he was okay.

His lungs were working beneath her weight…oh. He wasn’t responding to her hug.

“Erm, sorry, but I’m just,” she lifted off of him and realized she’d been…straddling him. The blush that bit into her cheeks was only slightly painful compared to what he must think of her right now. Oh God.

She moved away as best she could, murmuring, “I’m just glad you’re alright. And I’ll be backing away now.”

His expression was completely lacking. He just watched her as she disentangled herself and curled up in her corner of the hammock. Of course, he did grab the sides a few times as the swing shifted more than he was comfortable with, but overall…he just stared at her.

Blankly.

She said the only thing she felt she could, “I’m sorry.”

He blinked. Was this what it was like under the gaze of a Sphinx? Or perhaps something a bit more apt…perhaps a fairy god that had no human emotions? Cerunnos? Cromm Crúaich? She smirked smallishly to herself and remembered Cromm’s other name: Crom Dubh. Black Crooked One.

That one would do.

She curled in on herself as the adrenaline of her fear wrapped itself around her body again, but steeled herself to look up at him. “H-how are you feeling? You scared me there, I thought you’d had a heart attack or something.”

When he just opened his mouth a bit, closed it, then opened again, staring at her as if she’d grown a new appendage on her forehead, she began to fear that perhaps it was something a bit more in line with what such an apparent shock to the system might create.

He hadn’t had a pinstroke, had he?

Her concern returned tenfold and she leaned forward. In her lowest voice, earnest and without any possibility of a mocking tone so he’d take her seriously, she asked, “Can you answer me?”

He blinked at her, drew a shaky breath and in a very un-Snape-like, uneven tone, responded, “I haven’t completely lost my senses, madam, though I am beginning to wonder at your capabilities.”

If she looked beyond the tone and expression, the sentiment was very much in place with what she knew of him, so therefore, he seemed to be a bit shaken, but none the worse for wear.

She breathed a soft sigh of relief and smiled at him. “As I said, you gave me a bit of a fright and I’m just glad you’re still here.”

“I-”

He started to say something, and she leaned forward even more. “Yes? Do you need me to get you anything?”

He stared at her, long and…dare she say longingly? The raw emotion blinked away in a heartbeat and he was back behind his stoic facade. “I think you were right that I just need some sleep. Good night.”

She blinked. That was ‘It’? He folded his arms over his abdomen again and turned his body slightly away from her.

Well.

She couldn’t have been told more clearly that her efforts on his behalf were only marginally appreciated and that her feelings on the subject were not needed.

Fantastic. She must have just fancied the bit of agreeable emotion between them.

‘He nearly dies on me and I succeed in alienating him even further.’ How was she supposed to help him now?

‘Nox’

Making sure not to touch him more than absolutely necessary, and casting a warming charm on her clothes (if he wanted one, he could very well ask for it, as proven) she faced away from him and stared off into the hulking shadows of overgrown vegetation that grew in clumps and stumbles, choked with vines and shored with unplanned saplings.

Maybe…maybe she was just tired. It was no telling how late and she hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before, so she should just…take her own advice and go back to sleep.

The only problem, as she lay there, staring off into the half-acre abyss of magically enhanced and uncontrolled verdure, was that her mind repeated the scene in her mind of her concern, her relief when he awakened, hugging him, and watching those oubliette eyes open when she was afraid they would never open again. And it wasn’t so much that remembering each of these things was a problem. No. The worst of it was realizing she was sitting astride him and the absolute shock written across his face when he realized the same. She shuddered at the memory, tightened her eyes closed and hugged her waist more closely.

She really needed to go to the library in the morning, if only to get some time away from Severus so she could think straight.

/

As soon as she rolled away from him, he turned his head to look back at her. So many emotions were roiling within him, he had difficulty bottling and labeling them. She had obviously feared for him, felt relief when that fear had been alleviated. Embraced him.

And then, to completely derail the train of thought that had him building a rather sarcastic and cutting remark to have her remove herself, he realized she was holding him whilestraddling him.

With that was the dawning of the most completely confounding emotion: Desire.

He’d not felt that particular emotion for so long…well, he knew at least for two years. Surreptitiously lifting one knee to hide the rather pathetic representation of his reaction from her had been pointless. She’d been rather obviously put out with herself and crawled away into her corner of the swing, never looking at anything more of him than his face.

He didn’t understand. She cared enough to fear for his health, but…

Ah, who was he trying to fool? It was ridiculous to even think of anything beyond platonic with her, if only for the simple reason that he’d only known her a day.

More than that, really, but all he actually and finitely knew was this day, so what point was a drop of desire in the bucket of however much more he needed to deal with?

It certainly felt wrong, so closely coming behind the horror of finding his safe place empty of the eyes that had kept him company for so long. He barely allowed himself to close his eyes now, knowing he’d see the image of the empty tree emblazoned on the back of his eyelids.

Desperate for incontrovertible proof, for finality, he’d swum around the island, looking for any illusion, any possibility that he’d been wrong, that they were, in fact, still there somehow…but no. They were gone.

The eyes that had kept him company, comfort, sanity and held whatever tenuous link to his past his mind had clutched on were…simply…gone.

What did that mean? Did he no longer need the eyes, or was something missing in the meditative formula that had taken him there? The medication, perhaps? Would he no longer be able to receive comfort from his Safe Place?

Regardless of how he felt, their absence changed everything.

Then again…he’d always had a direct link to his Safe Place from the medication. This time, he’d been led to a different place, talked to someone first…

That man held a rather large amount of significance for him, apparently, so their interactions in his mind needed to be reviewed, dissected, analyzed, boiled down to their truest form…

He remembered the shove from the old man, his former mentor…what was it that he’d tried to keep him from stating?

Severus blinked and turned his head back to face forward. Was he keeping something from himself? Obviously. Why else would he create a maze-knot occlusion? Why else would he push…himself?…away at the answer to-

Well, now that was interesting. Yes, that was the point, wasn’t it?

Yes, he was quite obviously keeping something from himself, but now there was a taste of something more than betrayal…something darker. The shame and sadness in the old man’s eyes held more need, more remorse than leaving an age-old friendship in tatters.

Then, there was the odd feeling that the old man had been speaking riddles when he’d said that he was a part of Severus’ mind, as if he meant in more ways than one.

Dear Ancients, did he…was he…?

His heart raked up the scale of rhythm again, tried to climb out of his throat as he cautered pieces of his mental cauldron back together.

Would Hermione know if the man was still among the living?

His eyes darted back and forth across the glinting windows and shadowy porch of the nineteenth-century house before him.

She’d known of the other two. Statistics lay odds that she would know this last one, as well.

He turned himself, arching a bit over his torso, turning his head over his shoulder to see if she was asleep yet. A slight glint of wetness, reflecting from the streetlight nearby, at the eyes told him she wasn’t.

Was that merely the natural dampness of her cornea, or was it something else…was she perhaps…crying?

“Hermione?” he called to her in a low voice. She could choose to answer him or not.

“I thought you wanted to go to sleep.”

She hadn’t turned, hadn’t moved, just delivered this statement to him with a slightly acerbic tone. Was she upset with him for some reason? Hmm. Perhaps she was just as tired as she said she was or perhaps she was upset with herself. She certainly seemed so before.

The hammock lurched again—he really was starting to get used to it—as Hermione leaned up and glared at him over her shoulder. “What now? Can’t sleep again? Want me to go get you some warm milk and cookies, Professor?”

He narrowed his eyes at her, vaguely interested in the idea of their serpentine body language, but focused on what had her tossing animosity at him. He couldn’t think of any reason for her to be angry with him.

“Aren’t we mercurial? A few moments ago, that would have been a compromising position in some societies, yet now you act as the injured party. One wonders at your ability to help with regaining my own sanity when yours is so rapidly becoming in question.”

She reset her elbow beneath her and if it weren’t so dark, he’d have sworn her face would be reddened with indignation. It certainly spluttered through her tone. “What! I! You! If you think-”

“And here, I thought that your purpose here,” he swept his right hand towards the brick house, “was to help those injured and lost by the war.” He sneered. Honestly, it was almost as if she wanted him to remain distant from her. “If this is an example of your…hospitality…I think I might wait until morning and find another of your group.”

She inhaled sharply. “You know what?”

He raised an eyebrow, waiting with bated breath, of course.

“I think you should do that. Despite the fact that Remus is indisposed this time of the month, so therefore is Tonks. And despite the fact that you’ve succeeded in completely freaking Harry out, after me, that leaves Ronald. I’m sure you two will get along smashingly.”

It took him a moment to muddle his way through her jarbled, angry speech, but he caught the idea. He snapped his eyebrows together as another memory assailed him. “You’ll not be saddling me with any Weasley, madam. I’d rather be at Azkaban’s mercy, however deranged it may be.”

“How do you even—nevermind. That doesn’t leave you many options, Professor. It’s either me or Ronald right now. Take your pick.”

“This is a sad ship to have so few crew among them. Why aren’t there more of you?”

She stared at him long enough that he was about to offer another obligatory snark when she answered him in a distant and emotionless tone. “Everyone else had lives to build. We…” She faltered. “We didn’t.”

What was this? A sympathy play? “And what’s that supposed to mean?”

Anger snapped into her words. “It means that our lives were fairly well spent by the end of the War. Everyone wanted to bank on our celebrity, but no one wanted to pay for it. It’s not like the Muggle world where a hero can be made a millionaire just by touting a few bits of sports memorabilia. Harry had the house, Remus had the idea, and the rest of us needed something to do with our lives.”

She stared at him in the darkness, the salmon-mercury streetlight bathing her in copper and black shadows. He just returned her regard, unsure of what to say, so refraining from saying anything.

Now that was something rather irritating, “You agreed to call me Severus, for one.”

“I don’t know why that makes a difference.”

“Then you don’t know me as well as you claim. I’m not a Professor, anymore. I never wanted that for myself and surely after what you just said, you’d understand that.”

His outburst was met with silence. Honestly, had she no idea how irritating it was to be called by a title he couldn’t remember ever using? Not to mention the binding ties and dislike surrounding the connotations of such a word. It choked him.

“Alright then, Severus, did you actually need something from me or were you just itching for an argument?”

Her growling made him want to spear some hurtful phrase at her, but, “I did, actually, need something from you.”

She paused, sighed, “Alright then, what is it?”

Stiffly, he responded, “I needed to ask you about the meditation technique you used.”

“And?”

Her belligerence wasn’t making this any easier, but he pressed on, “What determines the person?”

She lifted herself up on her side and rested her elbow back across her waist. “Any number of things, but usually it’s a manifestation of the one person who can answer the question you need answered most. People usually have a fairly good focus on what their concerns are, at least subconsciously, before they enter this style of meditation, so it’s merely another part of the answer in most cases.”

“Can…does the person have to be alive?”

Her posture was uneasy. “Unlike other forms of connection-magic, this is merely entering your own psyche, so the person doesn’t even have to be real. You could dream up your own personal version of the Raven Queen(2) and she could advise you. You’re talking to yourself, basically.”

“And if…the person…let’s suppose he is real. Or was…” He lost himself in trying to explain his question, but she saved him from having to,

“Who did you see, Severus?”

That was the problem, wasn’t it? “I don’t know. I don’t know his name. Just like I didn’t know yours when I awoke this morning.”

“He’s one of the eyes?”

Relieved she caught on so quickly, he nodded and replied, “Yes.”

“What did he look like?”

“Long white hair, long white beard, spectacles…Blue Eyes.”

She nodded, obviously recognizing the description. “And how did you feel about him?”

Of course she knew him, she knew them all, didn’t she? How did he feel about this manifestation in his mind? He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Why? Am I supposed to feel something specific?” Something other than fear, devastation, betrayal, hatred, anger, love, confusion…Something that he could actually admit aloud? “What do you know of this? You obviously know who this person is, so you must also know the situation. Tell me what you know.”

“I don’t know if I should.”

Her calm, quiet answer was just the foil that sparked his anger. “What else are you here for? You’re the only one who knows them all!”

“No, I’m not. But I am the only one willing to put up with you.”

Insolent! “What?”

She very calmly continued. “You’re being rude, ridiculous, and overbearing. Very much so for someone who less than a day ago was in a medicated stasis. Yes, this is part of your original personality, but do you think you could tone it down a bit? I’m trying to help.”

That only served to rack his anger higher. “Help? What have you helped me with? So, you retrieved me from a mental institution. That’s nothing more than any of your other group could have done.”

“Do you have any idea what it was like, not knowing if you were even alive these past two years?” Ah, finally, some reaction appropriate to the situation! She’d snapped, at last. “I watched Tonks and Remus float through their lives for the first few months and then just snap-to when Teddy threw his trainer cup at them. If your situation was anything like theirs, I was terrified of what I would find when I came to you, and rightly so!” Her anger sparked a tiny bit, like her own personal Jacob’s Ladder in her hair.

She continued her rant, “You could barely talk, you were on the verge of insanity and you barely recognized help when it was given to you! I took you out of that place, which I’ll let you know is a sham! I brought you here, kept you safe, let you work your way through that large mind of yours to this point where, yes, you’re starting to be your old self again, but Golly, I’m not sure if it’s worth the effort if all I’m going to get is berated for it!

“Yes, I’ve helped you! I helped you through that house,” she actually pointed, “that terrified the pants off you not but an hour ago and I just helped you come back from whatever heart arrest or semi-stroke you just had! I’ve been here for you, constantly, for the majority of this day and night, only taking a tiny break to eat and use the loo. How could you possibly think I’m not helping you?”

He stared at her as she dropped her rant and exhaled, satisfied that he was right and that she did, indeed care for him, and waited patiently for the opportunity to continue his line of questioning. “Who is the man, then?”

She took a deep breath and let it out, “I shouldn’t bloody tell you, but his name was Albus Dumbledore.” She tossed her head and practically growled at him, “Ring any bells?”

He immediately latched onto the past tense of her sentence. “Was?”

Her voice dropped in contrition as soon as she realized her slip, “Erm…yes.”

He took a breath of his own and asked the question to confirm what she meant, “As in, no longer?”

Her voice broke at the beginning as she hesitated to answer, “He passed away three years ago.”

His next question was logical, really, “How?”

She shook her head. “No.”

He blinked. “What?”

“No, not tonight. It’s too much for tonight.”

“Well, now you’ve got to tell me.” Honestly, that was the worst sort of information to give. Just enough to dangle the carrot, then snatch it away for later.

“No, I don’t. You damn near died just from talking to him. What did you talk to him about, anyway?”

He whispered the first word that came to mind. “Betrayal.”

Her body reacted in shock, dropping the shoulder she was leaning on a few inches, then recovering, “How…What exactly…What conclusion have you come to so far?”

How much should he tell her since she’d been so bloody closed mouthed about her side of things? He thought about the rate of progression he had moved through today and wondered if perhaps she had the right of it and he needed to space these things out a bit. He eyed her copper and shadow form a few moments before selecting his words. “Something happened between us to force me to betray him. Something he did.”

She nodded. “That’s the gist of it. What…may I ask what happened?”

“That is a rather redundant question.”

She lifted her hand from her hip to wave away his response, “No, what happened to make you react so violently.”

Ah, how was he to answer that? He didn’t know when he reacted. Perhaps he should just tell her the strangest things from his recollection? “He…shoved me into my safe place.”

“What? Why?” Her concern was interesting, but he continued,

“I had just come to the point of asking him if he’d been the one to force the betrayal.”

“So your body reacted to him shoving you, or to being shoved into your safe place?”

He thought about that for a bit. It was a good dissection. So which was it? Oddly enough, he remembered thinking it was odd for the old man to shove him, but not enough to cause a violent, bodily reaction unless it was subconscious. And finding himself suspended in the water had been peaceful, almost comforting. He was surprised to reply, “Neither. I was easily redirected in my mind and I was happy to be there.”

She sounded as confused as he felt, “O-kay…So what happened? What made you stop breathing?”

He looked at her, trying to discern if she meant anything other than what she’d just said. He didn’t know he’d stopped breathing. What would have been strong enough, emotionally and physically to cause such distress to his body? There could be only one thing, “The eyes.” She looked back at him over her shoulder and he stared into what he could make of her face, “The eyes aren’t there anymore. They’re gone.”

She spoke slowly, quietly, “How many eyes are there supposed to be?”

He responded in kind, “Four pair.”

“Mine, Dumbledore’s…who else?”

“Harry’s.” He looked away for a moment, then back to her, “The other you said you knew.”

“L-” He waited for her to continue, but she just nodded.

He gritted his teeth. “You do know.”

“Yes.”

He inhaled, growled back at her. “Tell me.”

Why was she being so circumspect with his own information? Why keep it from him? She said it was for his own good—

She responded, “If we can rest tonight, I’ll do better. I’ll ask Harry if I can show you something.”

That sounded suspiciously like an evasion. “Why him?”

“Severus, it’s not that I don’t want to tell you, but I really think you’ve had enough mental blows for today. That last pair of eyes was rather important to you and Harry has something you gave him that will help. If we can wait ’til tomorrow, you’ll have more answers than I can possibly give. Is that okay?”

He’d given Potter something regarding this last pair of bitter green eyes? He wanted to demand more from her, but her promise of ‘more answers than I can possibly give‘ rather sealed the deal for him. Except, “Why would Potter help me when, as you say, I ‘freaked him out’ earlier?”

“Don’t worry about Harry. He’s a good sort. Just give him tonight and he’ll be fine tomorrow, especially if he’s able to help you with this.”

At that, he accepted that she knew him better and nodded, untwisting his body and laying back down to face the house. He felt her shuffle around behind him and thought back to everything she’d said, aloud and implied.

This last pair of eyes was obviously the link between himself and Potter, but Hermione felt it was too much for him to take tonight.

This young woman apparently cared for him and that was a strange feeling. Not that he didn’t want it, and not that there was anything wrong with her, really…just…

He had nothing. Up until several hours ago, he’d not even had his own name.

He quietly squelched his desires and budding thoughts that crawled through him now, resolving to be intent only on receiving her help and to push her away, at least temporarily, otherwise.

He had nothing.

He was nothing.

Nothing.

He tightened his grip between his knees and hunched in on himself. What a terrible thing to know about oneself. To be nothing.

How quickly could he change that?

A/N: This chapter ends the night my dears! The next will dawn a new day (can you say “whew!”?) Again, I love me some REVIEWS! ;) :P

(1) This was an homage to the drowning/recovery scene in The Abyss, starring Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, who coincidentally starred opposite Alan Rickman in Robin Hood: PoT. Those other actors don’t count as much :P Especially that Kevin guy.

(2) The Raven Queen is a broad idea in mythology, but many of us know her from D&D ;) I’m thinking Hermione and the boys probably had a go at this game one long winter’s month at Grimmauld Place. Ron would, of course, be utterly confused between fiction and reality, then wonder why the pieces didn’t move on their own. LOL can you imagine! a Wizarding version of D&D? I can’t be the first one to think of this… ;) Of course, I’m thinking that Severus thinks she’s referring to The Morrigan. (cheeky grin)

Now for the unofficial soundtrack ;) (i.e.: music I wrote to and thought really worked with this story)

1. Protège Moi – Placebo (UK)

2. Dreams Made Flesh – This Mortal Coil (UK) (desperate!Hermione)

3. Pardon Me – Incubus (US)

4. Disc Wars – Daft Punk (France)

5. Song to the Siren – This Mortal Coil (UK)

6. Il Fait Gris – Mélanie Laurent (France)

7. Saving Amanda (Taken Soundtrack) – Nathaniel Méchaly (France)

8. Dangerous World (Breach Soundtrack) – Mychael Danna (Canada)

9. The Only Thing I Know – Gotye (this one is particularly apt!) (Australia)

Featured Picks

So, considering the previous post is about gun control, the question before us really should be: who do you want to have the guns? Because there will be guns. No one’s getting rid of them. Do you want them? Do you want them to be in the hands of our military? Do you want them in […]

After reading this article and watching the news, I’m having difficulty coming to terms with how exactly to react to the newly proposed gun control measures. I had a discussion with a coworker about this very proposal the other day and he cited that it was ridiculous for someone to want an assault rifle. He said, […]

I was reading an interesting post on a blogsite I follow HERE and responded to one of her posts. She blogged about gun control and background checks, basically requesting citizenry to enroll or sign up for tighter restriction. She makes a good argument and you should read her side. I took a good long while […]

Eisenhower’s Warning Still Challenges a Nation Above, I’ve linked to an article transcribed from an NPR episode of Talk of the Nation, in which is discussed President Eisenhower’s final presidential speech to the Nation in office and it’s warning: that our country had (at the time) perhaps built ourselves too strongly overseas as a military […]